Electrification in the spotlight at Microlise conference

Decarbonisation was among the key topics under discussion at the Microlise Transport Conference in Coventry on 18 March.

“I’m just some bloke who bought some electric lorries,” said conference speaker and Welch Group managing director Chris Welch as he introduced himself.

“We’ve been operating electric trucks for more than a couple of years – it works in our part of the industry. We are part of the ZEHID government initiative.

“Electric trucks come with payload and distance penalties,” he warned. “Our electric trucks have done about 50,000 miles in three years: about what the rest of the fleet does in a week.”

He said the keys to electrification were to change the business model for electric trucks and not expect them to duplicate the productivity of a diesel, and to control energy costs. It was also important to establish that your service provider could handle electric trucks.

“It’s about intangible improvements and what you do behind the scenes.”

An important part of this was collaboration with other operators. Welch Group was a long-established member of the Transport Association. As such, it did not use fuel cards to refuel away from base, but purchased fuel for its 40 or so artics from bunkered stock at other TA members’ depots. He was now seeking to duplicate this business model by sharing the chargers installed at the premises of other transport concerns.

“Three years ago, we were the first electric truck operator in the UK to offer our truck charger for use by other operators,” he said.

“We need collaboration between operators, and not just truck operators. First Bus has been operating electric buses for 10 years, and its Leicester depot is open to truck operators for charging during the day,” he pointed out.

Electricity prices were also important. “We need a price in the high teens per kW to make electric truck operation viable, and currently it’s in the 20s. This puts fuel costs just about on a par with diesel.

“Customers are not very accepting of electric trucks yet, and I can think of only a couple who are prepared to pay extra for their use.”

He said lower-weight vehicles would go electric first, and operators could consider using parked vehicles charged with off-peak electricity as an energy source at weekends, although the inevitable toll that this would take on battery life would have to be taken into account.

Driver acceptability had not been a problem. “We have a queue of drivers waiting to drive our next electric truck,” he said.

“Economic growth is the main goal of this government,” Iain Forbes, the director of freight and borders at the Department for Transport, reassured delegates at the conference. He added that the UK now had the highest growth in the G7 group of nations.

“Freight and logistics are now in national planning guidelines, and local authorities are encouraged to support freight and logistics,” he added.

Carbon neutrality was also a key policy. In 2023, 29 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gases had been emitted by transport, and heavy trucks were the second-largest emitter after passenger cars.

“Just 0.2 per cent of the HGV market was taken by zero-carbon vehicles,” he pointed out, saying that the ZEHID initiative was to help government and industry learn what was required for the successful decarbonisation of road freight.

The conference also heard from Richard Leonard, network planning director at National Highways, who touched on the topic of roads maintenance.

“Roads still form the main mode of transport in the UK,” he said.

The 4,500 miles of motorway and A-road covered by his organisation had seen a 20 per cent growth in traffic since 2000, but received 20 times less investment per mile travelled than the rail network.

National Highways had established professional drivers’ panels and conducted customer satisfaction surveys among truck and coach drivers.

It estimated that 10 per cent of all delays on the network were caused by vehicle breakdowns and collisions.

National Highways was increasingly having to deal with the maintenance of a strategic road network that mostly dated back to the 1960s and ‘70s.

“Two-thirds of our spend will be on the repair and maintenance of the existing network,” he warned.